Hasan Kahvecioğlu, journalist from Cyprus, spoke to Yavuz Baydar.

Hot Pursuit

Erdoğan's moves in North Cyprus will only complicate things further - Hasan Kahvecioğlu

Turkey is never going to have a great relationship with the United States as long as Erdogan continues to behave in autocratic ways, Nicholas Danforth, a non-resident senior research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, ELIAMEP told Ahval paper’s editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar in Ahval’s Hot Pursuit YouTube interview series on Tuesday. Baydar has interviewed Nicholas Danforth about the bilateral meeting on Monday between President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan following a meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels.

No genuine reset with US until Erdogan abandons his autocratic manner-analyst

Even if Turkey manages to come up with a solution to the S400 issue or the eastern Mediterranean issue during the NATO meeting on June 14 between U.S President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there is not going to be a new page within the U.S. Turkish relationship without real democracy and reforms, Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey Program Coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy, told Ahval’s editor-in-chief in Ahval on Saturday. Tahiroglu said that Ankara really wants an image out of this meeting on Monday of positive U.S-Turkish relations.

No new page for the U.S. Turkish relationship without real reforms - Tahiroğlu

Yavuz Baydar, Editor-in-Chief of Ahval, spoke with Kurdish scholar David Phillips.

'Upcoming Biden-Erdoğan meeting will be a true watershed moment for Turkey' - David Phillips

Turkey's strongman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will try to use some "magic" to reset the relationship with U.S. President Joe Biden at their upcoming meeting in June. His “magic,” however, is unlikely to work at this time, Dr. Aykan Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD) in Washington D.C., told Hot Pursuit.Erdemir said that the meeting between the leaders offers little chance to fix the structural problems in the relationship between the two countries. Both countries have a number of serious issues to resolve. While the U.S. administration asks Turkey to remove the Russian-made S-400 air defence missile system from Turkish soil, Ankara wants Washington to stop Syrian Kurds who seem to be a threat to Turkey’s own national security. The Biden administration will ask the Erdoğan government to improve on its human rights records and democratic standards while the Erdoğan government asks the U.S. government to lift sanctions on some of the weapons systems.What is more, the bilateral meeting will be held under the shadow of the Belarus crisis, Erdemir added. Diplomats have told Reuters, Ankara pushed for the scrapping of any mention of support for sanctions on Belarus and calls for the release of other political prisoners in Belarus after last week’s forced landing of a passenger plane and the subsequent arrest of a dissident journalist by Belarus.There is one topic that has a chance for both leaders to make some progress and for Erdoğan to gain ground, and that is Afghanistan, Erdemir added. Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, U.S. officials said previously, completing the military exit by the Sept. 11, 2021. Taliban attacks had drawn the United States into the region and its longest war. Turkey has presented itself as a key partner in Afghanistan and was set to host the peace talks between the Taliban and the U.S. government. However, the talk plans have collapsed. Erdemir said that beyond some potential agreement with regards to Afghanistan, there appears to be no easy way to salvage the relationship.

Erdogan's magic is unlikely to work with Biden this time around

The accusations levelled by the exiled mafia boss Sedat Peker regarding the Turkish deep state activities, political assassination of a Cypriot journalist and many other shocking revelations paint a very complicated picture for Turkey regarding its ruling coalition.The series of video revelations by Peker indicate that the Turkish state apparatus has been overtaken by several crime rings and mafia bosses at the same time, Ahval editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar said in his Hot Pursuit podcast on Thursday.More than 100 million people, in Turkey and abroad, have locked eyes on the seven hour-long videos Peker released throughout May to understand both the current clash between the mob boss and Turkish interior minister Süleyman Soylu, and some of the past mysterious events Peker appears to be spilling beans on.Baydar said that Soylu had been instrumental in recent years in a plot to rise within the party with the help of “certain people tied to the underground world” including ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Tolga Ağar, whose father Mehmet Ağar served as both the chief of police and interior minister in previous governments. Peker promised to set off further waves of political tsunami in a series of tweets on Wedneesday. The mobster’s allegations and threats seem to have rattled Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government, as Peker starts to show signs that he could change direction and target the president directly.

Shaken but not stirred by ‘Mobstergate’, Erdoğan to double down on opposition

'Mob boss Peker's videos show us the second side of the cartel state of Turkey' - Prof Hamit Bozarslan

'Draghi's 'Dictator Erdoğan' statement will be remembered as a historic remark...' - Marco Ansaldo

Real damage of protocol crisis in the EU-Erdoğan meeting will be on the political level - Amb. Marc Pierini

What do the EU Summit conclusions on Turkey signify in reality?

In the latest crackdown on Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition party, the HDP, Turkish authorities on Wednesday stripped Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a prominent HDP legislator and human rights advocate, of his parliamentary seat.Meanwhile, a prosecutor filed a case with Turkey’s highest court, seeking the HDP’s disbandment. The HDP has come under intensified pressure recently, with the far-right nationalist allies of President Erdogan’s party calling for it to be banned. The moves against Gergerlioglu and the HDP come weeks after Erdogan pledged a series of human rights reforms.Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey Program Coordinator at the Project on Middle East Democracy, joins The Greek Current with a breaking analysis. *This podcast was presented by Kathimerini and was published with the permission of the creator.

What will be the consequences of the closure case against pro-Kurdish HDP? - Merve Tahiroğlu

Turkey's European Union membership candidacy trajectory is unsustainable and the country sees the steady demise of freedom and human rights, said former two term deputy of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Haluk Ozdalga during a podcast with Ahval.

Turkey's ideologically driven foreign policy and economic management lay in tatters - Özdalga

Turkey considers the United States not simply a rival but a declining rival which has abandoned foreign intervention in the Middle East since the Obama Administration leading to political vacuum, Howard Eissenstat, an Associate Professor of Middle East history at St. Lawrence University, said in an AHVAL podcast with Ahval’s editor-in-chief Yavuz Baydar. Eissenstat said that Turkey and the US will continue to cooperate despite growing tensions between the two countries. However, Turkey sees itself as an ascending power and it considers the US a declining hegemon. ‘‘Turkey considers the US not simply a rival but a declining rival which has abandoned foreign intervention policy in the Middle East since the Obama Administration leading to a political vacuum’’, said Eissenstat.‘‘It is utterly unsurprising that Turkey, which has long believed that it had a natural role of leadership in the region, would try to step into that gap‘‘.

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